Governor says letter gave OK only for 'theoretical research study' on state's shale

Jun. 15, 2013

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Gov. Dennis Daugaard’s office is denying reports that the governor last year volunteered South Dakota as the possible site for a long-term storage facility for nuclear waste.

The issue came to light when Donald Pay, a former South Dakota resident now living in Wisconsin, found references about the governor in the minutes of a May 2012 meeting of the United States Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board. The meeting featured a speech from Albert Carnesale, a prominent nuclear engineer who was picked in 2010 to serve on President Obama’s Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future.

The commission was instructed to find recommendations on how the United States should deal with waste from nuclear power plants.

During his speech, Carnesale implied that Daugaard had come close to volunteering the state as a possible site when he sent a letter to Steven Chu, the former secretary of the U.S. Department of Energy, requesting a grant for a research project at the South Dakota School of Mines & Technology. The project was to explore how shale could be used as a disposal medium for spent nuclear fuel.

But the governor’s office on Friday took the unusual step of releasing the letter that Daugaard sent to Chu. The short, three-paragraph letter asked for support in securing funding for the research project.

“In regard to the investigation of shale as a disposal medium for spent nuclear fuel,” Daugaard wrote, “I see no reason not to conduct this research, as long as this proposition does not obligate the state of South Dakota to accept nuclear waste.” The letter went on to say that the state’s voters would have to approve any decision to create a storage facility in South Dakota.

Tony Venhuizen, the governor’s director of policy and communications, said the letter was sent to promote a “theoretical research project,” and not a “feasibility study.”

“I think the clear message from this letter is pretty deep skepticism from the governor on actually storing this stuff here,” he said.

But Pay said the governor might be naive by hinting that the state might have an interest as a storage site.

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“The citizens of South Dakota could have a vote, but if the Department of Energy is going down the road of designating South Dakota as a storage site, the vote isn’t binding on the department,” Pay said. “The governor could think he’s protecting South Dakota, but he’s really not.”

The School of Mines did receive a grant for $150,000 to conduct the research. William Roggenthen, a research scientist at the school who oversaw the study, said it was only an initial inquiry into examining whether shale in general, and not just shale in South Dakota, could be used as a storage medium for spent nuclear fuel. The Dakotas, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado and Nebraska share the Niobrara shale formation.

Roggenthen said other shale formations are being studied as disposal mediums in other parts of the United States and in Europe.

“From a technical aspect, we’ve tried to be very careful in making this a generic study,” he said.

The study is due at the end of the month.

The nation’s spent nuclear fuel was supposed to be stored at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. But the Obama administration halted that option amid public opposition and safety concerns.

Now scientists, Roggenthen said, are back to searching for suitable storage mediums.

“It’s a real problem, because nuclear waste is continuing to build up, and the United States government has an obligation to do something about it,” he said.